1. Field of the Invention
This invention provides an improved weedless artificial fishing lure of the type having an elastomeric body associated with at least one hook.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Artificial fishing lures having elastomeric bodies, particularly the so-called plastic worms, have been known and used since at least as early as the mid 1950's. The plastic worm type lures are the elastomeric body lures most frequently used, and usually comprise an elongated body designed to resemble a worm, snake, grub, minnow, or the like. The elongated body is composed of a soft, highly flexible and resilient polymeric material having a low penetration resistance. Typically, the polymeric material can be formed from a PVC plastisol, that is, a suspension of a PVC polymer in a liquid plasticizer. Generally, the plasticizer constitutes more than 50% of the plastisol composition and is responsible for the resiliency, flexibility, softness and low penetration resistance of the plastic worm body.
The plastic worm type lures are used extensively by bass fishermen especially large mouth bass fishermen. In fact, use of plastic worm lures by bass fishermen has increased to the extent that at the present time the plastic worm lures are the lures most frequently used by large mouth bass fishermen.
Plastic worm bodies are often sold separately from the hook or hooks for the lure. The fisherman may then choose his own hook and insert it into the worm body, as by forcing the pointed end of the hook into the nose of the worm body, sliding the hook axially through a portion of the body and passing the pointed end and barb of the hook radially outwardly through the body so that the pointed end of the hook is situated outside of the body and points in the direction of the nose of the lure. However, since many if not most fish are caught in the vicinity of lilly pads, submerged logs, brush, sunken rocks or like cover, the exposed hook end and partially exposed hook bight are prone to become snagged on underwater obstructions, resulting in loss of the lure.
In order to alleviate such problems, it has become a practice of fishermen who use plastic worms to turn the hook about its shank and reinsert the protruding pointed end and barb of the hook back into the body of the worm. Though this practice renders the plastic worm weedless, it also makes it more difficult to hook a fish. Upon feeling a strike the fisherman must jerk back on the line with sufficient force to cause the embedded hook to penetrate through both the plastic worm and the fish's mouth.
Hooks have been modified to render the lure weedless. Such modifications include providing special bends in the hook to make it more readily reinsertable back into the plastic body of the worm and/or cause it to penetrate more readily outwardly through the body of the worm at the time of a strike. However, such modification of the hook results in still another problem. The bend in the hook causes the shank and bight of the hook to protrude outside of the body of the plastic worm lure. Sometimes a large fish upon taking the worm into its mouth will immediately spit or blow the worm back out because the exposed part of the hook feels unnatural in the fish's mouth. Unless a fisherman is very quick he misses the strike.
Hooks have also been modified by the addition of a wire which is attached in the vicinity of the eye of the hook and bridges the gap between the eye and the end of the hook. The wire rests, under tension, on the pointed barb of the hook and will, in theory, prevent objects from becoming entangled in the bight of the hook. This type of weedguard suffers from the problems discussed above, i.e., unnatural feel and difficulty in setting the hook. Additionally, sometimes the tension holding the wire against the barbed point of the hook is too great and as a result the weedguard will not disengage from the hook during the strike by a fish with the result that the fish is not caught. If the tension on the wire is too low, the weedguard can pop loose upon encountering an underwater obstruction, causing the lure to be lost.
It has also been suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 3,389,490 to Peters et al to use one of the legs of a lure resembling a crayfish as a weedguard. The crayfish leg of Peters et al terminates in an enlargement into which the point of the hook, but not the barb, is inserted. The leg is made from a plastic material having sufficient stiffness and elasticity to cause the leg to spring off from the point of the hook in the event of a strike. Similarly, it has been suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 539,149 to Shattuck to render a hook weedless by the addition of a flexible arm attached to the shank of the hook and which is adapted to be bent down into engagement with the point of the hook. The material of which the guard is composed has a spring-like quality causing the end of the arm to remain in place behind the point of the hook due to tension, and to spring off upon being struck by a fish. These guards suffer similar disadvantages to the wire guards discussed above. If either the guard tension is too great, or if the guard is engaged too firmly by the hook, a fish cannot be hooked; if tension is too low or if engagement with the hook is too slight, the guards are readily disengaged by underwater obstructions.
Numerous other arrangements have been proposed to render both lures and hooks weedless but none have proven to be completely satisfactory for use with lures such as the plastic worm, having elastomeric bodies, and there has been a continuing need for improvement.